Filmmaker Osato Dixon isn’t new to storytelling. His work behind the scenes at HBO, NBCUniversal, and McKinsey & Company already proved his eye for narrative, but Wait Until Tomorrow, premiering at the 2025 American Black Film Festival, is different. It’s personal. It’s layered. And it’s unapologetically for us.
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Shot over three years, the documentary follows more than a dozen Black Americans across cities like Atlanta, Detroit, Houston, and D.C., all navigating different realities of economic mobility. From a young girl growing up under the weight of financial strain to a mortician continuing his family’s business legacy, Dixon captures how survival and stability show up in everyday.
“These aren’t reenactments,” Dixon told Bass. “These are real people, and being in their space changed how I wanted to show them.”
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This is true storytelling of Black Stories–no narration, no gimmicks.
Where Data Meets Dignity
While Wait Until Tomorrow was shaped in part by “The Economic State of Black America,” a report from the McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility, Dixon made it clear: the documentary didn’t start with numbers.
“It really was… families and stories first, and then I was able to choose which statistics could help really thread that needle,” he said.
He didn’t force facts onto people’s lives. He let the stories speak first and brought in the numbers to support what was already unfolding.
Like Pauline, whose words about survival cut through louder than any policy memo.
“One of our characters, Pauline, mentions she can either pay her student loans or feed her family,” Dixon said. “Just in that one sentence, she speaks to the complexity of that data.”
Dixon also worked with Black economic experts to frame the issues from within the community, not from the outside looking in.
“The beautiful part also was the economic mobility experts are… also Black experts,” he said. “They’re able to also sometimes share some of their own personal reflections… in terms of why this matters now.”
A Visual Love Letter to Black Life
Dixon didn’t just direct the film—he also picked up the camera. Literally. Many of the striking black-and-white stills in Wait Until Tomorrow were shot by Dixon himself, with an intentional blend of studio portraits and street photography.
“The black and white photography that you see—I’m the photographer behind it as well,” he said. “There was studio photography that we did, and there was also street photography.”
The film’s visual style draws from a deep legacy of Black photographers, including Eli Reed’s Black in America and the iconic lens of Gordon Parks.
“Obviously Gordon Parks, but also Eli Reed… it’s one of my favorite photo studies,” Dixon shared. “He looked at what really happened in the ’80s and ’90s in Black America.”
That intentionality—visually and narratively—was never rushed.
“You can tell a story over the course of a year,” he said, “but really seeing how change can occur takes time. The patience in the process is something that I found myself really being okay with.”
The Team Behind the Truth
While Dixon helms the film with a clear sense of vision, he’s joined by a strong team of creatives who bring their own storytelling power:
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Kelley Robins Hicks, producer (Random Acts of Flyness, Space Jam: A New Legacy)
Jamund Washington, producer (Gimme the Loot, Ziwe, Tramps)
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Kara Murphy, co-writer and Atlanta-based writer/editor, who helped shape the project’s narrative arc
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Together, they created a documentary that respects the emotional complexity of its subjects without reducing them to issues.
A Film That Feels Like Now
Wait Until Tomorrow doesn’t shy away from how complex the conversation around Black wealth really is. It draws connections between history, policy, and generational impact—but always through the people living it.
“We touch on history—like white flight in Detroit—but we also explore the now,” Dixon said.
That includes stories like Armand, a lawyer who was the first in his family to attend college and is now building wealth and advocacy from the ground up. Or Antonio, a funeral director whose legacy traces back to an ancestor who escaped enslavement and built a life in Detroit.
Each character gives a different lens—but every one of them brings the issue home.
Beyond the Theater: Building Access and Engagement
Dixon understands that not every audience member experiences film the same way—and not all engagement happens inside a theater.
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That’s why Wait Until Tomorrow is being adapted beyond the long-form. Dixon and his team plan to create shorter, social-first content that draws from the film’s most personal arcs. Stories like Crystal and her daughter Asia—a mother navigating economic pressure while raising a daughter through high school—will be reimagined for broader platforms, allowing the film’s message to move through different spaces.
“We want to share this content in a social fashion… that invites engagement,” Dixon said. “These characters invite us into their lives in ways that I think will be challenging in a good way for audiences.”
The project is also hitting the road. After its world premiere at ABFF, Wait Until Tomorrow will continue its festival run, with confirmed screenings in New York, Texas, and Massachusetts. Distribution conversations are underway, and Dixon says there’s strong interest in bringing the film into educational institutions as well.
“We’re on our festival tour right now,” he told Bass. “This type of interaction—with outlets like this, with audiences that care—helps the film reach who it was made for.”
Because at its core, Wait Until Tomorrow isn’t asking for attention—it’s demanding reflection. And that’s the real assignment.
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